Evolving Personal Finance

Avoiding an Expensive 401(k) Plan through Self-Employment

September 11th, 2015 | 21 Comments

Kyle finally received the 401(k) plan information from his new employer about 6 weeks after starting work. When he told me the plan offered American funds, my heart sank! The stereotype I have about American funds is that they have loads and high expense ratios. When we looked at the plan documentation, we didn’t find any load disclosures (thankfully), but the expense ratios were approximately an order of magnitude higher than what we have in … Read entire article »

Filed under: retirement, self-employment

August 2015 Money Puddle and Spending Report

September 4th, 2015 | 28 Comments

I was wrong about this month being a bloodbath on the income side. I mean, I was right about that, but this month was also a bloodbath on the expenses side! We had to furnish our apartment with a few new items we didn’t need in Durham and also stock our fridge and cabinets with food and household consumables. Those expenses were all distributed across “Groceries” and “Furnishings” in probably not a very consistent manner, … Read entire article »

Filed under: month in review

Am I a Work-at-Home Wife or a Stay-at-Home Wife?

September 2nd, 2015 | 25 Comments

Last week, in a bid to be more organized with my time, I laid out a template for how I would like to spend my time each workday. It uses high-level categories to remind me to work on various aspects of my business each day. This is a switch-over for me from using only to-do lists, as I would allow myself the ‘out’ of working on the more urgent or enjoyable items and never get … Read entire article »

Filed under: self-employment

Lifestyle Increase vs. Lifestyle Inflation: Ikea Furniture

August 26th, 2015 | 18 Comments

For the last couple years around the personal finance blogosphere, I’ve been emphasizing the difference between lifestyle inflation and deliberate lifestyle increase. Lifestyle inflation has a terrible reputation in our community – deservedly so – but as a person who wants to life a higher lifestyle than she has in the past (unlike some others!), I felt it important that not all increased spending is painted with the same brush. Lifestyle inflation is the mindless process … Read entire article »

Filed under: lifestyle creep

Summer 2015 Update on My Business

August 19th, 2015 | 11 Comments

I just returned from my first speaking engagement of the fall so I thought I would give you a proper run-down of what has been happening with my new business over the past several months. I’ve discussed how my PhD prepared me for entrepreneurship and pointed you to my speaking site a few times in the past, but haven’t yet told you exactly what my objective is or how I’m doing. I guess I haven’t wanted … Read entire article »

Filed under: self-employment

Apartment Search in Seattle

August 17th, 2015 | 15 Comments

As soon as Kyle began interviewing for his current job, we started looking for a place to live in Seattle. From talking with friends who had recently moved there, we repeatedly heard the Seattle housing market be referred to as “hot” and “tight.” We knew to expect much less space and higher rents than we had experienced in Durham, but we did not anticipate that it would operate on a totally different schedule and set … Read entire article »

Filed under: housing

Why Do You Travel and How Much Do You Spend?

August 14th, 2015 | 20 Comments

I recently wrote a post for a higher education blog that gave an overview of how Kyle and I managed and used our money in our last year of grad school (2013-2014), which I consider to be our most (financially) optimized year. The commenters and some people on Twitter really did not care for the post and criticized various aspects of it. Most of the criticism was around the theme that our stipends were very … Read entire article »

Filed under: travel, values

Cross-Country Vacation Part 2

August 12th, 2015 | 4 Comments

This post will detail the second half of our cross-country road trip, including the cost and pictures. In the first half, we drove from Durham, NC to Sundance, WY, with many stops along the way. In the second half, we made it to our destination of Seattle, WA, via Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. July 21, 2015 Our motel didn’t provide breakfast, so we stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few more supplied … Read entire article »

Filed under: travel

Cross-Country Vacation Part 1

August 10th, 2015 | 13 Comments

Last month, Kyle and I moved from Durham, NC to Seattle, WA. We shipped all our stuff using a pod, and we moved ourselves and our car via a cross-country trip. I already shared with you the total cost of our trip, both the move and vacation portions, but this post with give you the breakdown of what we did each day, complete with cost and pictures. 🙂 Something important to note is that we barely … Read entire article »

Filed under: travel

July 2015 Money Puddle and Spending Report

August 7th, 2015 | 7 Comments

This month was a BLOODBATH on the expenses side. (Get ready for a bloodbath next month on the income side!) Our actual accounts look even worse than this reflects, because we made a lot of expenditures that are going to be reimbursed. I’ve included the numbers for both the spending that we expect to be reimbursed and the spending we won’t have reimbursed, though I’ve only counted the spending we are responsible for against the … Read entire article »